Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1883 — THE IRISH SITUATION. [ARTICLE]

THE IRISH SITUATION.

Yaraell’a Ylem Upon the Tone of tho English Press.—The Irish Party Not > Responsible for Outrages. i A London dispatch gives the substance 'of an interview with Mr. PameU,in which be said: ■' "Neva: did Ireland more need friends 1 in England, and never have the friends of Ireland been more constrained to silence. I have felt compelled to refuse to make any utterance oonoerning these matters to the English press, because, no matter how carefully my expression ihight be made, any jury would certainly be prejudiced, if it would not be packed. England is Hot in a mood to listen to anything about Irish affairs that is not condemnatory of the Irish people. It is the fashion in England now to cry down Ireland. The sorest way to British preferment is doing this well. Christianity has grown for nearly two thousand years and in the country which has published the most Bibles it has come to pass that the greatest public favor is the proffered and guaranteed reward of the English follower of Christ who can invent the most excuses for suppressing the natural right of the Irish follower of Christ The Irish Christian takes less Friday fish from the north side of the British Channel, the English Christian less from the south. Why should the Irishman be absolutely a slave, and the Englishman be his master? Why should the Irishman give up his struggles to be free? After centuries of strife the Irish people have reached, by wonderful patienoe and Wondcrrul tact, that stage of political success wherein their struggles for liberty were confined to parliamentary efforts. So good was their cause that legislation was secured giving the Irish peasantry some rights on their native soiL So prudent were. the peasants in the enjoyment of the fruits of their hard toil that malice was for that time foiled, and since the period of the ministry’s concessions no unlawful act has been or can be brought home to the real Irish party. If crimes have been committed in Ireland, so have crimes been committed elsewhere. But in Ireland everything done by persons not moffioe must be done by Irishmen, and, if the acts are criminal, it seems nearly impossible for Englishmen to assign other than revolutionary reasons for their commission. I do not care to discuss the crimes now under judicial investigation in Ireland, so long as the oourts of justice have them in charge; but I do pro test against the uncivilized injustice ah«»wn by the English press toward the people of Ireland since the reoent explf sion. The explosions oocured at 9 o’clock at night, the one at’the government building doing "some £4,000 damage, and the one at the Times building doing little, if any. The polioe and military were at onoe put in possession* and all opportunity for an impartial investigation shut off If the London press were conducted as the American press is, scores of expert writers would have investigated the explosions on the spot, and undoubtedly folly explained them in all the pnblio prints next day. But secrecy and mystery were secured, which naturally surrounded the affairs with great portent. Next day the London press, without exception, without investigation, without Mason, oharged both explosions; upon the Irish party, describing them as diaS bolioal plots to punish and intimidate the government. Fair reportorial investigation might have shown that the explosion at the government building was oaused by gas, and that the one of the Times building was caused by any one of a thousand persons who imagined themselves aggrieved.

DISTRESS IK 8 GOTLAND AND ENGLAND. "I tell you, notwithstanding all the troubles of the Irish people, there is today as muoh bitter woe in England and Sootland, and as muoh bitter hostility among the poor and idle of both countries aghinst these lodged in power as there ! ever was in Ireland. The Irish are struggling for fair politics. They are aooustomed to being hungry and ill housed and elad, and are not murmering on that account. But the laborers in Sootland and England are idle and hungry and dangerously impatient You don’t see all this in the editorials of the papers, but you see it in the Cola obis' where the stories of the poor are told, and in the ▼astly increased number of orimes of violence. The manufactures and trade of England are in bad condition, and the English people are not Nihilistic, and never have been, and, if they were, there are ten oases in England for Nihilism where there is one in Ireland. The Irish poor are the agricultural poor. The poor

J_ P_ 1 11 il-j. I) jy , m> -I, || I, IV. •owns wnt miniDg uinnciSi i <xo have been concerted by the enemies of Ireland. All I insist upon is that the Irish party is honestly erntyavoring to secure remedial legislation through the the regular course of Parliament; that the Irish party has no need to resort to such acts of personal violence as have been oharged against it, and the Irish party has every reason to refrain from such illegal acts.” “I further maintain that whether or not the opponents of the Irish parth have found it convenient to engender or invent acts of violenoe for the purpose of injuring the Insh oause in Parliament and before riie English people,the fact that they invariably and without investigation charge the Irish party with having per petrated all these crimes, produces the same result, and is almost equally criminal I charge the London press with the political orime of having without reason and without inquiry attempted to con vinoe the English mind that a series of outrages, which will undoubtedly be proven to be unconnected with the Irish party, were representative acts of Irish revenge. I charge the London press the political orime of having this done in a critical period of Irish remedial legislation, and I lay upon that press all the responsibility for all the delay which may be consequent of that justice which the ministry avowed its intention to give Ireland, and for all the spirit of Irish hostility which may be aroused as a result. I declare that the Irish party is innooe a of all cause for the blame sought to be placed upon it” .